Dynamics of a three-level atom in the field of two standing light waves

Philip Hemmer, M. S. Shahriar, Mara Goff Prentiss +3 more

Anatoly S. Pazgalev, Yu. V. Rozhdestvenskiǐ

The diffraction of the wave packet of a three-level atom in a multifrequency optical radiation field is studied. A new type of coherent beam splitter for atoms that employs the scattering of a wave packet in the field of four standing light waves with different spatial shifts is proposed on this basis. It is shown that this interaction scheme makes it possible to obtain large splittings (>100ℏ k ) of the wave packet of a three-level Λ atom in momentum space into only two coherent components. In addition, the atoms in these coherent components are in long-lived atomic states, which substantially simplifies the experimental implementation of such a splitter.

Vladimir G. Minogin, Yu. Rozhdestvensky

智 藤井, 敏雄 伊東

V. I. Balykin, Yu. E. Lozovik, Yu. B. Ovchinnikov +3 more

The localization of sodium atoms in a spherical standing single-frequency light wave was experimentally studied and numerical calculations were performed for two- and three-level sodium atom models. A qualitative agreement was obtained between the experimental and theoretical results for the three-level atoms. The interaction between sodium atoms and the single-frequency field was shown to cause an effective localization of the atoms in the vicinity of the light-wave modes. The process was found to be influenced substantially by optical pumping, giving rise to an additional cooling of the atoms.

Emmanuel Paspalakis, A. F. Terzis, P. L. Knight

We investigate how observation of upper state atomic populations localize atomic position distributions for three-level atoms within a classical standing wave light field. We consider a three-level atom, with the standing wave near-resonantly coupling one transition and a probe laser field near-resonantly coupling the second transition. Two different cases of localization are identified and we explore the dependence of localization on the parameters of the field–atom interaction.